The present invention relates to a method of marking an operation device with pictograms to be attached to the operation device which conducts mutually different operations of, for example, ON/OFF or Open/close and an operation device marked with such pictograms.
In general, an operation switch is provided with an identification letter and/or a pictorial symbol, i.e., pictogram for the user to recognize a function of the operation switch. To reduce erroneous operations, pictograms desirably have high visibility and identifiability.
Particularly, for a switch such as the ON/OFF or Open/close switch which causes either one of the mutually different operations depending on the user's operation, it is desired to reduce erroneous operations. For this purpose, it is required to make the user first detect a target switch, for example, the ON/OFF or Open/close switch and then identify which one of the constituent components of the switch is ON or OFF.
For example, almost everyone has an experience of erroneous operations in an elevator. That is, to hastily open the closing door of the elevator for a person who desires to take the elevator, a passenger in the elevator cage mistakenly operates the Open/close switch disposed in an operation panel to resultantly close the door. This takes place because although the passenger empirically knows the locations of the Open and Close switches, it is not possible for the passenger to hastily judge which one of the switches is the Open switch to be selected to open the door.
To remove this problem, it is effective to mark characters such as “” (“Open” in Japanese), “” (“Close” in Japanese), “OPEN”, and “CLOSE” on the surface of the Open/close switch as shown in (a) and (b) of FIG. 28. In the globalized environment today, these characters or letters are available only for those who can read such characters or letters. Hence, in general, pictograms are primarily employed, for example, as (c) of FIG. 28 in which a central straight line and a pair of arrows respectively indicating the closing and opening directions are used to represent the closed and open states of the door. Also, to solve the problem, it has been proposed to form the Open switch and the Close switch in concave and convex shapes, respectively.
As above, the marking characters or letters of the Open/close switch are arranged on an operation panel or a console for the user to detect the Open/close switch. After the detection thereof, it is desired that the letters call the user's attention with identifiability thereof. According to recent brain studies, there exist neurons which are highly reactive upon being stimulated by particular patterns. For monkeys, a hand neuron highly sensitive to a hand pattern and a face neuron highly sensitive to a face pattern have been reported. According to an article, this effect is also the case with humans.
As confirmation of the effect, reference has been made to good results attained in examples in which a road sign and a pedestrian sign to which a notice and a human image are attached are employed in a pedestrian crossing as well as in an example in which a board on which a human hand and a notice are presented is installed at a place of illegal dumping.
For a headlight of a motorcycle, it has also been proposed to produce the headlight in a form like a human eye. This easily reminds one of a human face. Hence, when a driver of a car running before a motorcycle catches, by use of a rear view mirror, an image of the motorcycle with such headlight, the effect of the headlight calls attention of the driver to existence of the motorcycle.
These techniques are described in JP-A-8-73145, JP-A-2006-298045, JP-A-57-115232, JP-A-63-275323, and JP-A-9-98972.